According to Digital Inspiration, Google is shutting down Google Page Creator program and will now be replaced with Google Sites. It is one of the many Google programs currently in existence such as, Knol, Blogger etc. The Google Page Creator is a general web creation tool that has been a Google Labs projects since its inception.
Over at Google Groups, the Official Google Page Creator Guide has announced the departure of the program. Here's the announcement as posted on Google Groups:
“Hello Google Page Creator Users,
We are no longer accepting new sign-ups for Page Creator because we
have shifted our focus to developing Google Sites. Google Sites offers
many of the capabilities of Page Creator along with new features like
site-level navigation, site-level headers, control over who can see
and edit your site, and rich embeddings like calendars, videos, and
Google docs. Simply put, we think that Google Sites offers a better
experience for creating web pages and websites. Consequently, we will
be shutting down Page Creator later this year.
If you are currently a Page Creator user, you can continue to use Page
Creator and your pages will automatically be transitioned to Google
Sites later this year. We are committed to making this transition as
smooth and easy as possible, and we will post more details as we get
closer to the transition time. You can also manually move your web
pages from Page Creator to Google Sites or other service providers at
any time.
Page Creator has always been a Google Labs project (Labs is our
"technology playground" where we let users test-drive experimental
products and give us feedback so we can innovate more quickly). Since
launching Page Creator in Labs, we've learned a lot and have
incorporated those lessons into Google Sites. We think the Labs
program, which allows users to try new things before they're fully
baked, lets us innovate faster and ultimately create the best possible
products.
We seriously thank each and every one of you who have taken the time
to use, write about, offer suggestions, and become passionate about
Google Page Creator. Sites will be an exciting way to continue and
extend the great things you've been doing; we can't wait for you to
start using the service.
Sincerely,
Mike and the Google Page Creator and Sites Teams “
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
With Google Page Creator you could upload HTML files and that’s why with GPC it was much easier to make your pages look exactly the way you wanted with uploaded HTML files and CSS files (or CSS in HTML). With Google Sites you can’t upload HTML files or use scripting either.
When I tried moving my Google Page Creator pages to Google Sites, I had to copy and paste the HTML source from the HTML files and change and tweak the HTML and it still looks disgusting. Also, my week old Google Sites website got banned, because its spam filter sucks so I had to contact the Google Sites team to get my Google Sites website back. Now my pages are back to Google Page Creator and I’m not sure what I should do. Google Sites is definitely Beta and should be told on every page on that service.
Has anyone looked at the source for one of their sample pages? I looked at the Family page, ran it through the validator, and it came up with 68 errors. Here’s a link to the validator’s findings (watch wrapping):
[http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fsites.google.com%2Fa%2Fjotspot.com%2Fsample-family%2FHome&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&ss=1&outline=1&group=0&verbose=1&user-agent=W3C_Validator%2F1.591#source].
I’m sorry, but you would think that:
A. Google would use a Strict doctype, after all Transitional is for _transitioning_ documents, not New ones.
B. Would not use deprecated markup, eg.:
(notice there is nothing in there, just bloated code – a la Front Page and other bloat ware).
C. Would be sure that content is valid – after all this is Google, not Microsoft.
D. Would not abuse tables for layout purposes – that’s so 90′s.
E. Would not use so much inline CSS. As we all know, that’s a headache to maintain.
If Wordpress can produce valid markup, why can’t Google?
Please tell me how to move my Google Page Creator pages to Google Sites. thank you very much
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